Internet use has grown quickly in recent history and indications are that Internet use will continue to grow. Users access the internet to view all types of content. Today, users can view live presentations of events, such as sporting events, as well as stored content, such as videos and pictures. The providers of such content typically want to have some level of control over the manner in which the content is viewed and by whom. For example, the provider of videos may want certain videos (e.g., selected videos, or type or class of videos) to be encrypted upon distribution.
Typically providers of Internet content are separate entities from the network providers that provide the infrastructure to distribute the content. To reach a very large audience, content providers typically purchase the services of a content delivery network provider, which generally has a large network infrastructure for distributing the content. However, because content providers typically don't have control over distribution, the providers typically have limited control over how, or to whom, the content is distributed.
Although content providers can specify to some extent how content is to be distributed, conventional approaches have been quite limited. For example, a content provider can generate a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) that includes data that the content distributor can use to determine how to distribute the content. However, the form and values available for URL data is fixed and limited to a particular set. The content provider must abide by particular formats and values so that the specification of terms of content distribution is unambiguous to the content distributor. Although relatively standardized, this fixed approach does not enable the content provider a variety of ways or flexibility in specifying how content is to be distributed.